


Past and Present

by mechanicaljewel



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Backstory, Community: indeedsir, First Time, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-09
Updated: 2007-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:43:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanicaljewel/pseuds/mechanicaljewel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeeves’s romantic past and his angsty present</p>
            </blockquote>





	Past and Present

**Author's Note:**

> Wodehouse’s and whatnot.  
> Thanks to my wonderful beta Spike, aka Jem’s Bird, aka the author of [The Case of the Missing Valet](http://www.excessant.com/HI/fiction/jems_bird/missing_valet/missing_valet.htm)

In my younger days, I used to go to the Turkish baths on Jermyn Street frequently, searching for anonymous experiences, while still harbouring shame over my apparent proclivities. Afterwards, in reaction to succumbing to my weakness, I would go to the library or a bookshop and devour anything improving. My goal was to reach an intellectual state that would suppress my baser passions, giving rise to an Aristotelian happiness that comes with a life of pure contemplation.  
  
But Aristotle’s teacher had a much more profound effect on me. Greek thought only led me to further exploration of Greek love: Plato’s Symposium, Zeus and Ganymede, Damon and Pythias, Achilles and Patroclus. I justified my Greek reading list by telling myself that they were classics, that by reading them, I would intellectualise my passions and regard them more as a field of study.  
  
This approach worked, inasmuch as I had thus given myself the perfect excuse to delve into the works of Walt Whitman, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Marcel Proust, and of course, Oscar Wilde (obtained from a more discreet bookstore). I quite enjoyed my shame, with frequent trips to Jermyn Street and subsequent trips to bookshops.   
  
I found that intellectual pursuits suited me. I had always been quick to learn a skill and had a sizable memory, but always applied towards learning servile duties. My newfound interest in the liberal arts caused my father concern that I was in danger of rising above my station, a sentiment that was agitated by my sister Daisy’s flattering declarations that I would go into the House of Commons and instantly be made Prime Minister.  
  
“Stop laughing, Reginald!” she scolded me every time, as I always would. One day she became quite upset, near in tears, saying that I didn’t take her seriously, and that she truly believed in me. It broke my heart to see her so distraught, so I told her why I would not be able to stand the scrutiny that politicians must. I explained it as delicately as possible, but I was still concerned as to what her reaction would be. She could ruin me with a simple call to the police station, or she could just tell Father; though he was a good man, he was very traditional, and the trials of Mr. Wilde were still in recent memory, and it’s quite possible that he knew some of the young men involved (though obviously, I never asked him).  
  
Daisy, however, simply flung her arms around my neck. “Oh, Reggie!” she cried. “You’ve just shattered the dreams of every girl in the neighbourhood! And their mothers!” From that point on, I loved her more than life itself and spoiled her madly. She urged me to tell Mother, but Mother was not one to keep anything from Father.  
  
So I continued thusly. I even had a short-lived relationship, which ended just in time for me to escape into the war.   
  
* * *  
  
I was put into service as a batman of an officer only five years my senior from a very distinguished family; for this reason he will remain anonymous. We became very intimate friends, the  _mot clef_  being ‘intimate.’ And whether it was because of a natural openness of character, or because of the madness of war, he ignored the normal class barriers that discouraged true friendship between men of such disparate stations (though they turned a blind eye to our discreet carnal relations).  
  
One night, about three months into our association, we lay curled together in his bunk (ostensibly for warmth), and he too commented on my intelligence as Daisy had, and suggested I seek public office. Again I explained my fear of exposure, and he laughed.  
  
“My dear Jeeves, don’t you know half of Parliament shares our tendencies? If anything, Parliament is the perfect hiding place for men of our sort. Why, look at me. When I get back to Blighty, I’m going to take my place in the House of Lords. Granted, I’ll probably take a wife, keep the line going and all, but nothing’s going to keep me away from the West End at night!” He laughed again, and then added, “Say, you wouldn’t be averse to coming back with me as my valet, would you?”  
  
I was surprised, but very much warmed by the gesture. The offer was tempting, but I told him that my conscience would not allow me to have an affair with a married man. Silently, I gave thanks that I had not fallen in love with him; otherwise he would have been difficult to turn down. And then, almost without thinking, I added, “I think I shall only serve unmarried gentlemen.” Previously, I had been quite indecisive about my career path, no doubt due to a subconscious desire to do as my father feared and rise above my station. I had been quite grateful for the war to provide this hiatus, but now my path lay clear out in front of me: I would be a gentleman’s personal gentleman.  
  
He interrupted my thoughts and joked, “You’re just going to try and find a better-looking man than me.” I smiled softly as I looked into his eyes, a striking green. He was baiting me, as he knew I found the others’ self-deprecation uncomfortable, and always hastened to reassure them in any manner possible. So we ceased any real conversation as I demonstrated exactly how attractive I found him.  
  
* * *  
  
So with a letter of recommendation from my comrade-in-arms, as well as the respectability that comes with being a veteran of the Great War, I secured a position as a valet easily. Though my employer was not a man of the same unique disposition as myself, I had not really expected, nor considered it very wise, to engage in a physical relationship with any gentlemen I might serve.  
  
Another result of my relationship with my officer was that I no longer felt ashamed of my nature, and therefore I allowed my reading to go beyond the Greeks and Uranians. As Mr. Aldous Huxley once said, “An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.” I find these to be the most fitting words of this period in my life, especially because I had quite unintentionally become celibate. This acceptable, if not entirely happy, equilibrium served me well for the first six years of my career.  
  
It was in the year 1923 that I entered the service of Mr. Bertram Wooster. Two years later, that equilibrium would be shattered on one fine spring day.  
  
It was an event of little outward significance. It was not marked by any outstanding circumstances, or surrounded by any of the amusing events that he himself has chronicled (and at one point, I myself also did, in the Junior Ganymede club book). He had gone out to his club soon after rising in the late morning, and when he returned that afternoon, he came to see me in the kitchen where I was polishing the silver.  
  
“What ho, Jeeves,” he chimed as he walked in, followed by “At ease,” when I started to rise to a more professional position.  
  
I therefore remained seated when I asked him, “Is there any matter with which you require assistance, sir?”  
  
“No, no Jeeves, at least not immediately. I merely wished to tell you that I plan to dine in tonight.”  
  
“Very good, sir. Would salmon with fennel  _en papillote_  be to your liking?”  
  
“Oh, yes, quite Jeeves. That sounds positively delish.”  
  
“Very good, sir.”  
  
He then left the kitchen, and for reasons that to this day I cannot explain, I felt compelled to follow him. After a slight hesitation, I gave in to the compulsion. It was timed just so that he had already vacated the corridor, at the end of which I stopped and concealed myself around the corner. I glanced around it to see him seat himself at the piano, flex his fingers, and begin a lively piece of improvisation.  
  
It was then that I knew I loved him.  
  
Again, I can offer no explanation for the manner of this revelation. It was not simply a matter of his serene yet rapt visage. Nor was it because of the beauty of the music. It was not the way a lock of his hair had fallen out of place and across his forehead, but that particular detail was the reason I quickly made my way back to the kitchen, lest I be tempted to brush it back into place. Though it was a service I had performed without a second thought on numerous occasions, it now took on dangerously intimate connotations that could betray me.  
  
It was through sheer force of will that I managed to ignore my revelation until after Mr. Wooster had retired for the evening. It was agonizing to see him in bed, my will holding on for a few more moments. Once in my own chamber, I sat to consider the situation.  
  
I loved my employer.  
  
I had loved him for some time without realizing it.  
  
I was in love for the first time in my life.  
  
What a cruel twist of fate that my first love, not pure lust or companionship, but love, true love, would be such a man a Bertram Wilberforce Wooster. Nature had already bestowed upon me, for better or worse, an affinity for my own sex, but now I had fallen in love with an aristocrat. Granted, it was fairly common, if not fashionable, for men of Mr. Wooster’s generation to engage in romances and even matrimony to those of the lower classes But this was a man who had shown time and time again to have no interest in romance or matrimony; I had (gladly, eagerly) helped him out of romantic entanglements and engagements regularly. At this thought, I supressed the hope that his disinterest in marriage was a result of his true nature laying along the same lines of my own.  
  
It became increasingly clear that I was gazing down a treacherous path. Therefore I did what I had long done when faced with the insoluble problems of love: I reached for a book and read until I fell asleep.  
  
* * *  
  
The next month was pure agony. While I managed to maintain the “stuffed frog” façade that he had so often ascribed to me, the realization of my feelings for Mr. Wooster made it difficult for me to perform the simplest of tasks: bringing him breakfast in bed, helping him dress, attending him in the bath, especially. Every time my fingers grazed his when passing him a drink, or I adjusted his tie, I craved to take him in my arms, caress his darling cheeks, stroke his silky hair, and make sweet, slow, intense love to him.  
  
Only a few options remained. I considered returning to the bathhouses of my youth, because certainly having been celibate since the war was not helping my state. But I could not allow myself to make do with anonymous encounters. As silly as it sounded, to do so would to be unfaithful to him. But neither would I allow myself to avail myself, as it were, because to do so would cheapen what I felt for him.  
  
After a month of this torture, I took the coward’s way out and left his service, using his ill-advised, new hobby of banjolele-playing as an excuse. Even so, I could not bear the idea of being completely separate from him, and so I entered the service of one of his friends, Lord Chufnell, the magistrate of the village in which Mr. Wooster made his new home. But, as I should have known, he soon got himself into a good deal of trouble, and I was right by his side again, rescuing him from irate American fathers and cottage conflagrations. Within a week, I was back in his service and in London. And while I fully expected the rest of my days to be full of the same internal torture that preceded my departure, I decided that I would simply operate one day at a time; although it was painful to be near him, it was unbearable to be apart from him.  
  
Now while I was normally in tune with even the slightest movements of my employer, no matter the state of slumber either of us may be in, for some reason I did not hear him rise in the middle of the night on that first night back until he shuffled into my bedroom. I awoke quickly to see him staring at me through the milky darkness.  
  
“I wanted to make sure you were still here, Jeeves,” he offered by way of explanation.  
  
“I assure that I am, sir. Is there anything that you require?” I asked as I began to rise.  
  
“No, Jeeves, stay,” his voice shook. “Stay in that bed, stay in this flat, I don’t care if you never so much as hand me a biscuit for the rest of my life, just stay with me.”  
  
I was shocked, not just by the words he spoke, but the tone in which he spoke them. It was the tone of someone who had suffered, someone who had been lost.  
  
“Sir?” I asked, hoping that he would answer the numerous questions swirling in my mind.  
  
“Jeeves, I feel so bally silly about this—after all, it was only a week—but dash it, when you were gone and I didn’t know that you would be coming back, all I could think about was you. Everything that I did or happened to me, I would somehow relate back to you. Why, when Pa Stoker was ordering me to marry his daughter, the first thought on my mind was, ‘I don’t want to marry Pauline, I want Jeeves!’ And I didn’t mean that I wanted you to come get me out of it. I just wanted you back with me, more than any female.”  
  
My heart leapt at these words, but as I gave no outward sign of this, he continued uninterrupted.  
  
“And when you first told me that you were going to work for Chuffy, I could only think that he was all wrong for you. Anyway, Jeeves, the overarching theme, the whole point of this is that I’ve been thinking about you without cessation, and much of it I don’t fully understand…”  
  
He stopped there, at a loss for words, unable to articulate all that he wished. I, on the other hand, mentally berated myself for jumping to conclusions regarding the emotions that Mr. Wooster had just voiced. So I simply met his gaze and said, “And would you like my assistance in helping you understand these thoughts?”  
  
He breathed a sigh of relief, “Would you Jeeves? That would be wonderful.”  
  
“It would be my pleasure, sir,” I said, miraculously keeping my voice even. “In this case, I should like to ask you what you were thinking when you first entered my chamber?”  
  
And while there was no way to be sure in the darkness, I am certain that he blushed.  
  
“Well, to be perfectly honest, ah, I felt as if I should crawl into the bed and curl up next to you. It felt like I was  _supposed_  to do that…” He looked away.  
  
I marveled at the fact that it seemed he could not hear my heart pounding from across the room. Trying to sound as professional as possible, I asked him outright, “and would you still like to do so?”  
  
He looked at me and hesitated before he admitted, “Yes.”  
  
Wordlessly, my eyes never leaving his, I pulled aside the coverlet on the other side of the bed. He hurried to get beneath the covers before he could lose his nerve, and I had to shift slightly so that he would not feel my arousal as he lay on his stomach with his head on my shoulder and his leg cast over mine.  
  
“Sir…” I said breathlessly.  
  
“Jeeves,” he interrupted, “I don’t know much, but I know that you are more important to me than any blasted banjolele, all of my father’s estate, even my very breath. I’d rather be without life than without you, and whatever shreds of life I haven’t already ceded to you, I surrender them now. I grant you full control of Bertram’s fate.” He then looked up and locked his brilliant blue eyes with mine.  
  
“Sir…” I said softly, my voice shaking. “Bertram,” I tried again, bringing my free hand up to his cheeks, letting it rest there.  
  
He closed his eyes. “Jeeves…or, er…” His eyes snapped open.  
  
“Reginald.” I smiled at him.  
  
He closed his eyes again and lifted a hand to cover mine, and he pressed in his cheek.  
  
I was unsure how to proceed. I certainly knew what I  _wanted_  to do, but I was still unsure that Bertram was fully aware of all the implications of what he was saying, and how his statements could be interpreted. Fortunately, upon further deliberation, I realized that the solution to the latter was the former: I would proceed painstakingly slowly.  
  
For several minutes, I simply stroked his cheek, and he soon laid an arm across my chest. We eventually both turned on our sides to face each other. I ran my thumb over his cheekbone, swept my fingers down his jawline, and eventually moved to stroking back his gorgeous, burnished-gold curls.  
  
His eyes started to flutter, but while they may remain closed for substantial period of time, they were never tired. The eyes that reappeared would always be bright and shining and, dare I hope it, expectant.  
  
As I continued to caress his face, I slowly began to move mine closer, ever so minutely, until softly our foreheads touched.  
  
He sighed in the manner of angels’ wings.  
  
I nuzzled my nose against his, breathing in the scent of his recent bath, which I ironically noted was lavender. His breathing grew heavier, and I knew the time had finally come.  
  
I very lightly touched my lips to his. As quickly as it started, I pulled back to view his whole face. This was the moment of truth. His eyes were closed, and his mouth hung slightly opened, his lips pouted. Then, as if only just noticing my absence, his brow knitted, and in the barest of whispers, he said, “Jeeves…”  
  
I took this as the sign I’d long hoped for. Throwing caution to the wind, I leaned back in to kiss him deeper. I delicately lapped at his lips. He sighed into my mouth, and I slipped my tongue inside. He began to respond eagerly to my ministrations therein. I rolled him on to his back, still kissing him with both the years of pent-up lust, and the more potent unresolved love of the past month. He slid his hand up my back, sending jolts down my spine, before burying his fingers in my hair. Very gently, I moved one hand to his hip and began to pull him in slowly. He pressed into me, and I could feel his hardness answering my own. Suppressing the urge to ravish him completely right then, I continued with the thorough lovemaking of which I had long dreamed and which he so utterly deserved.  
  
I ceased exploration of his mouth and moved down to his neck, laving at the pulse point I found there. He gasped, and I am quite certain I heard him whisper, “Oh, I say.” He started stroking my back, and I insinuated a hand under his pajama top. His lean frame quivered at the direct touch. I lightly brushed a thumb over one of his nipples. His breathing grew harder, and he began rocking his groin against my thigh.  
  
I worried that he would find his peak too soon, and I ceased all ministrations to focus on removing his night shirt. As I worked on his buttons, he came to life and started to work on mine. Soon we were both shirtless, and without warning, he closed in on my chest, and drew one of my nipples into his mouth, licking, nibbling, sucking. My eyes closed, and my back arched, pressing my chest closer to the delightful sensations. Those sensations that I once believed would be my undoing; now they were my salvation.  
  
My hands moved of their own accord, down to his hips. The sharp bones reminded me that this was no hazy dream from which I would awaken to a soiled solitude. I slipped my hands beneath the waistband of his pajama trousers and reached behind to cup his buttocks. He jerked slightly in my arms, and a cold dread washed over me that he had reconsidered.  
  
“Jeeves,” he gasped, his breath sending chills throughout my body as it ghosted my moistened nipples. “Take this blasted nightwear off of me.”  
  
The last traces of incredulity were finally banished. I gripped his buttocks and pushed him up to kiss him while I slid the last of his garments from his lithe frame. I broke the kiss to look down while I revealed him.  
  
He stood proud, flushed, longer than I had expected, and curving toward his belly, the flared head already slick with anticipation, its ruddy hue contrasted to the navy blue tent that had once been my trousers. This was for me, freely given to me, because the man I loved could not imagine his life without me.  
  
It was a miracle that I did not find my completion right then. Perhaps the only reason I did not was because at that moment, he pressed his forehead to mine and cast his glance down to the selfsame sight that I was drinking in, and said, “I want to see you too.”  
  
I could never deny him. Soon I too was revealed in a similar state, though I am slightly thicker and not quite as long.  
  
“Oh,” he stated simply before shifting his hips to bring our arousals into contact. The effect was electric. I bore down on him, trapping our erections between us, kissing him fervently. He let out a series of short staccato moans, grunts, gasps, and at one shift of my hips, a definite squeal. I could see that neither of us would last very long.  
  
I broke the kiss to his initial confusion, but when I quickly made my way down his torso, leaving kisses where compelled, he leaned back in anticipation. Soon I was kneeling between his legs, at eye level with his groin and its pulsing need.  
  
I cupped his sac first. He hissed through his teeth, and I began rolling the contents softly in my palm as I reached the other hand to his tip and swept my thumb over the weeping head. It twitched in my hand, and I could feel his testes start to draw up. Not wanting to waste a moment, lest he finish before I finished what I longed to give him, I lowered my head and took him in my mouth as slowly and as deeply as possible. He let out a very vocal moan that receded into a quiet hum that did not fully fade out. Despite the years since I had last done this, I found I was still able to swallow him to his base, and could therefore use my throat muscles to massage his tip. His humming changed pitch as I did this, and fearing the end, I began pumping my head up and down, running my tongue along his vein, sucking him as though he was sweet ambrosia.  
  
He came the moment I had his head back in my throat. His nectar burst in an almost never-ending flow, pulsing down my throat as I greedily drank it down. Shockwaves ran through him and he sat almost completely upright with the force of his climax. As I drank the final drops, his member softening in my mouth, I managed to glance up at him. His face was red and slick with perspiration and his brilliant blue eyes glittered with amazement, and, I dared hope, love.   
  
I pulled back carefully, letting him slide out gently. I gazed at the beautiful sight of his exhausted prick lying in a bed of light brown curls. I inhaled his heady masculine scent and began kissing and licking the insides of his thighs, slowly heading inward and lower. Guiding his thighs to rest on my shoulders as he lay back down, and I gained better access to that dark ring I so desired. I ran my tongue up his cleft, teasing the little hole lightly, lazily. My own need was still great, but I would not push him this far if he was not ready. I heard him murmuring nonsense. I pulled back and came back up to his level. His eyes were glassy, yet beneath I could espy a steadily growing look of concern.  
  
“Jeeves.” He stopped. “No, Reginald. What about you? I don’t think I can do, well, what you just did.”  
  
I took a deep breath. “Well, Bertie, there are a number of things we could do. I have one in particular in mind, but I do not wish to rush you into relations that you may not be ready for. In fact, some men do not ever find it appealing, though they find actions such as the ones previous quite enjoyable.”  
  
“Never mind that, Jeeves. I handed myself over to you, mind, soul, and body. And after that last bit—well if you want to do it, then I want to do it. Besides, how will I know if I enjoy it or not unless I try?”  
  
At this display of selfless generosity, for which I so love him, I kissed him again briefly before reaching into my nightstand drawer to pull out a seldom-used pot of Vaseline. I opened it and collected a sufficient amount on my fingers. After I put the pot back on the nightstand, I looked him in the eyes, and without my even having to ask, he nodded.  
  
Never removing my eyes from his, I reached down underneath him and began teasing his entrance with my slick fingers. A brief look of surprise crossed his visage, but it was quickly replaced by anticipation. As I massaged the outer ring, his legs began to lift up of their own volition, and with my free hand I guided them to wrap around my waist. Once he was situated, I ventured one finger inward. On reflex, he clamped down tightly. I simply continued to look him in the eyes, and murmured words of encouragement. Within a few moments, he had relaxed himself and lay fully open to me.   
  
Soon, I had two fingers buried deep inside of him. I deliberately avoided his prostate, because I wished to give him that experience when we were completely joined. I did my best to make sure his passage would be able to accommodate me, but when I slid my fingers from him, I still kept my eyes sharpened for signs of pain. But his eyes were closed, and he had a look of bliss on his face.  
  
I placed the head of my prick at his entrance, and with slight pressure, made my intentions known. He opened his eyes to lock with mine, and without saying a word, he again opened his body to me. I pushed in slowly, watching my dark organ disappear into his fair body, silky and warm, sinking myself all the way to the hilt. I ached with tremendous need, but I wished to savor this as best as possible. I pulled out slowly until just my head remained inside, and I readjusted my angle for reentry. I reached up with one hand and took his, lacing our fingers together. I leaned down to kiss him, to give him reassurance, but he needed none. And so, I pressed in again.  
  
This time, I hit his prostate, bringing back to life his half-tumescent member, his eyes growing wide at the sensation as I thrust again. He pressed deep into that thrust and began bucking his hips, urging me onward. And there, I finally lost control. Our lovemaking became frantic and intense, our hips rocking in time with each others’. Thrusting desperately within him, my prick pulsed with near-release, and his was in complete readiness to join me at the peak. Finally, when I could hold mine off no longer, I grasped his shaft, and with some well-placed pressure beneath the head, he found release again, pouring himself over my hand and tightening his muscles around my prick. I broke then, my climax pumping waves of seed within this beautiful man.  
  
When I was at last empty, I carefully pulled out and collapsed beside him, both of us gasping for air, and for a while, there were no words. I brought our still-intertwined hands to my lips and began sprinkling his with kisses. He turned over and curled into my chest, and I wrapped my free arm around him. I could no longer remember what had led to this consummation, but I knew at that point I could tell him what I longed to say.  
  
“Dash it, Jeeves—Reginald, I love you!” Bertie exclaimed. I was shocked; he had beaten me to it. “For almost a year now, I’ve been trying to figure out what these emotions I’ve had in re. you were, but it’s so bally obvious now: I love you!” He began covering my neck in kisses, and before I could get over my shock and return the sentiment he paused to ask, “You’ll never leave me again now, will you?”  
  
And out of the post-coital haze came the recollection of the procession of events that had led to our lovemaking. I cupped his chin and looked him in the eyes. “Of course not, my darling. You must understand that the only reason I left was because I loved you so much that it caused me great pain to be so near to you without being able to show you, as I just have, for I did not expect your requital.”  
  
Now it was his turn to look shocked. “Wait, that is to say, you really had no idea that Bertram harbored such heartfelt thingummies for you?”  
  
I chuckled. “Darling, you just admitted that you yourself did not know you loved me until tonight.”  
  
He rolled his eyes at me. “Of course I didn’t, Reginald, because I’m a bally mental negligent! But for you not to know, well, I think I’ll have to go back and check the math on this whole loving you business, because I can’t have got this right on my own.”  
  
I could tell he was not being serious. Quite the contrary, he seemed rather pleased to have outsmarted me in his own way. “Love does strange things to one’s mental state, Bertie, especially when it is not being acted upon.”  
  
He puzzled over this a moment. “You mean to say that you loved me so much that you were blind to the fact that I was blind to the fact that I loved you?”  
  
“Essentially, my dear.”  
  
“Well, I’m glad that’s all cleared up. And in any case, we ended up snug as peas together, regardless of how long it took us to figure out that the other party was also game for it.”  
  
“Exactly, my dear.”  
  
“So it’s ‘my dear’ now, instead of ‘sir,’ is it?”  
  
“In private, yes. But I’m afraid that when others are about, we must continue to appear only as master and valet.”  
  
“Oh, right,” he said absently. “Like they told me in school.”  
  
“Darling?”  
  
“What happened to ‘my dear’? Well, anyway, what I was referring to was that time in Eton when I was about thirteen, and one of the instructors came across Bingo and self kissing behind the biology lab. He told us that we were still young, but that someday we would discover girls and that we should start learning now that gentlemen did not do these things with each other. And since you are a gentlemen’s personal gentleman, if we started being all ungentlemanly with each other in front of anybody who happened to be present, people would figure out that those titles don’t fit us right quick.”  
  
I decided to save sharing the full extent of the consequences for a time that was not quite so congenial. “And what eventually happened with Mr. Little?”  
  
“Well, you know Bingo. He really took to girls when he discovered them. I never really did, and I always wondered why. It took me a while to figure out that maybe that instructor was wrong and that every few chaps decided chaps were more their cuppa.”  
  
“When did you reach that conclusion, my dear?”  
  
“When you kissed me.”  
  
And with that he blushed, and buried his face in my chest. I chuckled and began idly stroking his back.  
  
“Say, Reginald,” he piped up a few minutes later.  
  
“Yes, my dear?”  
  
“How did you figure out that chaps were your cuppa?”  
  
I smiled at him and said, “That’s a long story.”


End file.
